Yes, Best practices are harming your business. The reasoning is simple – they are someone else’s success story and not yours. Just because another business was successful with whatever you are copying doesn’t mean you will be. This is especially true if you are using someone else Best Practice to solve your Recruiting and Retention problems. In simple point of fact, you probably won’t be. So what can you do instead of copying what someone else is doing?
We have heard it over and over. “We have to work on establishing a more engaged workforce.” “We have to get our employees more engaged” What does that mean? Let’s define Employee Engagement. Employee Engagement is nothing more than the extent the individual chooses to apply their knowledge, skills, and abilities toward an effort. I invite your attention to three words “the individual chooses.”
What does that mean?
A common reason I am given for a business to not engage in workforce planning is that they don’t see the value in it. Aside from the information, I presented in my article Why do Organizations Need Workforce Planning, there is the information presented in the Entrepreneur Magazine article, 5 Important Guidelines to Increase HR Values In Your Organization. These articles may not address the objections of your harshest critics. In that instance, you would have to develop a Business Case for Workforce Planning.
How do you develop a business case for Workforce Planning (WP)?
Workforce Planning is the single best way to not only drive your talent strategy but also to support your overall business strategy. Your workforce planning strategy should not exist unless it is aligned with and supporting your overall business strategy. Building a Workforce Plan, as I have shared before, takes time, effort and knowledge. A common concern is its complexity. Is Workforce Planning Too Complex?
Let’s answer that question…
The ability to measure the success of your Workforce Plan depends on overcoming one of the 3-Challenges. That challenge is perception. Most businesses in America, even those that refer to their employees as their most valuable asset, see the workforce as a cost to be managed. Measuring the success of your workforce plan means changing that perception to one of seeing the workforce as the primary means of business growth and success. In other words, like any asset, you must care for it in a way that makes it maximize its potential. That is what we are doing here as we Measure the Workforce Plan to Ensure Maximum Potential.
Here is how…